If it’s too cold outside, practice your shooting indoors

If you find yourself stuck inside, unable to get out to the range, there’s a way you can still scratch your shooting itch. You won’t be able to shoot your favorite gun, but you might be able to use one almost exactly like it.

There’s a huge group of people who already know about Air Soft guns. Or Soft Air guns, depending on who makes the model in question. They’re pretty much the same thing. If you don’t know what they are, they’re air guns that shoot plastic BBs, and you can get them in models that are copies of most of the actual firearms on the market.

The Soft Air warriors you might run into use guns that mimic the military and special forces weapons, and they get together on weekends to shoot those guns at each other.

But if you’re just hoping to get a little practice when the weather’s too nasty outside to do it for real, you can get one that matches your regular sidearm and shoot to your heart’s content in the comfort of your own living room.

Granted, you might want a high-quality pellet trap, because even though these things shoot fairly soft plastic projectiles, they shoot them fast. The spring-powered versions generally push at about 300 feet per second, and the gas-powered ones can break 400.

Some of the most popular versions, like the one modeled after the Smith & Wesson M&P, come in either spring or gas powered styles. If you’re trying to decide which type to get, keep in mind that though the CO2 versions will shoot with more velocity, you’ll have to keep plenty of CO2 cartridges on hand. The spring versions aren’t as powerful, but the only thing you’ll need to reload is the ammo.

Thank goodness there are people like us who can’t stand the thought of a day when we can’t go shooting. And thank goodness those people had the knowledge to make an idea like this work. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some shooting to do.